Allen v. CSX Transp., Inc.

• Decision Date: 14 February 1992
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 90-3045.
• Citation: 784 F. Supp. 906
• Parties: Dave ALLEN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

784 F. Supp. 906

Dave ALLEN, et al., Plaintiffs, v. CSX TRANSPORTATION, INC., Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 90-3045.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

February 14, 1992.

Richard A. Allen, Richard P. Schweitzer, Zuckert, Scoutt & Rasenberger, Washington, D.C., for plaintiffs.

John C. Martin, Asst. U.S. Atty., Washington, D.C., for defendant NRAB.

Mark Holden, Ronald M. Johnson, Charles L. Warren, Richard Schlegel, Akin, Gump, Hauer & Feld, Washington, D.C., for defendant CSX Transp., Inc.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JOHN H. PRATT, District Judge.

Before this Court are Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment and Defendant's Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment. We have fully considered the parties' motions, oppositions and replies, and we heard the parties on January 29, 1992. Accordingly, we grant plaintiffs' motion and deny defendant's motion.

I. Background

The plaintiffs are petitioning the Court to set aside orders of the National Railway Adjustment Board ("NRAB"). Plaintiffs are Canadian employees of CSX Transportation ("CSX") who perform their work within the boundaries of Canada.

The case has a complicated factual background. In February 1988, two of plaintiffs' fellow employees filed a class action against CSX in D.C. Superior Court alleging breach of contract. See Rastall v. CSX Corporation, 696 F.Supp. 683 (D.D.C. 1988). In Rastall, the Canadian employees as here argued that they should be paid in U.S. dollars, or equivalently to U.S. dollars, since they are covered by the same collective bargaining agreement as United States employees. CSX by way of response contended that the dispute should be arbitrated by the NRAB. CSX removed the Rastall case from the Superior Court to the District Court asserting federal question jurisdiction on the ground that either the Railway Labor Act ("RLA") or the Labor Management Relations Act ("LMRA") applied and required the parties to submit such disputes to arbitration. Judge Gesell found that neither the RLA nor the LMRA had extraterritorial effect to govern employees who are citizens of another country and work in that other country. Id. at 684-85. As there was then no basis for federal question jurisdiction, Judge Gesell remanded the case to Superior Court. Id. at 685.

The Superior Court at this point concluded that the dispute resolution provisions contained in the collective bargaining agreements required the parties to submit to binding arbitration, and granted CSX's motion for summary judgment. On appeal, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. Rastall v. CSX Transportation, Inc., 574 A.2d 271 (D.C.1990), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 111 S.Ct. 1018, 112 L.Ed.2d 1099 (1991). The Court of Appeals held that the employees' contracts allowed them to either arbitrate or seek a remedy at law for labor disputes. 574 A.2d at 274. Plaintiffs allege that they intend to pursue their action in a jury trial in District of Columbia Superior Court.

While the Rastall case was pending appeal, CSX submitted 11 separate actions for arbitration before the NRAB. CSX in these actions submitted the question of whether arbitration was required, but subsequently CSX and the two unions, the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers ("BLE") and the United Transportation Union ("UTU"), agreed to dismiss the NRAB proceedings on arbitrability and instead agreed to allow the NRAB to resolve the merits of the currency claim for 21 employees (18 of whom are named plaintiffs in the action at bar). The case was then sent by the NRAB to a referee who upheld CSX's practice of paying Canadian employees in Canadian dollars.

In a separate set of proceedings, while the appeal of the Superior Court's decision in Rastall was pending, a number of CSX's Canadian employees submitted the currency dispute to the NRAB. In each case, the submission contested the jurisdiction of the NRAB and stated that they were filing with the NRAB only because the Superior Court had held that the dispute could not be tried in court. See Plaintiff's Memorandum in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment at 10. When the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided that arbitration was not required, the employees then moved to withdraw all the arbitrations, and were permitted to do so except for the one arbitration that had already been argued.

In this case, plaintiffs seek specifically to have the three awards by the NRAB vacated. The three arbitration awards challenged include the arbitrations brought by UTU,¹ BLE,² and the group of individual employees.³ In all three awards, referee David Twomey decided that the Canadian employees should be paid in Canadian dollars. He based his decision on the fact that they had been paid in Canadian dollars for over 30 years. See Reply of CSX Transportation, Inc. to Plaintiffs' Memorandum in Opposition to CSX Transportation, Inc.'s Cross Motion for Summary Judgment, Ex. C.

II. Discussion

A. Jurisdiction of this Court

The Court has only limited jurisdiction to review decisions of arbitral panels under the RLA. However, although the range is "among the narrowest known to law," Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Sheehan, 439 U.S. 89, 91, 99 S.Ct. 399, 401, 58 L.Ed.2d 354 (1978), judicial review is permitted if there is: 1) failure of the Board to comply with the RLA; 2) fraud or corruption; or 3) failure of the Board to confine itself to matters within its jurisdiction. Del Casal v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 634 F.2d 295, 298-99 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 892, 102 S.Ct. 386, 70 L.Ed.2d 206 (1981).

Plaintiffs argue that the RLA specifically permits the District Court to review and vacate a decision of the NRAB where the Board has exceeded its jurisdiction. Indeed, the language of the statute appears to so provide,⁴ and other courts have repeatedly interpreted the provision as such. See, e.g., Union Pacific Railroad Co. v. Sheehan, 439 U.S. 89, 91, 99 S.Ct. 399, 401, 58 L.Ed.2d 354 (1978); Ozark Air Lines, Inc. v. Air Line Pilots Association, Int'l, 744 F.2d 1347, 1350 (8th Cir.1984), vacated, adhered to en banc, 761 F.2d 1259 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 903, 106 S.Ct. 232, 88 L.Ed.2d 231 (1985); Del Casal, 634 F.2d at 298.

Defendant points to two recent cases in this District in which the court held that it was without jurisdiction to review as the burden was on the protesting party to show that a provision of the RLA mandated that the National Mediation Board ("NMB") refrain from some action. See Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Defendant CSX Transportation, Inc.'s Motion for Summary Judgment at 31 (discussing International Brotherhood of Teamsters v. National Mediation Board, 136 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2193, 1990 WL 264708 (D.D.C.1990); Railway Labor Executives Ass'n v. National Mediation Board, No. 89-3306 (D.D.C. June 10, 1991) (Green, J.H.). However, these two cases are inapposite for several reasons. First, the cases dealt with the NMB, not the NRAB. Second, both courts acknowledged that they had at least some jurisdiction to consider the legality of the NMB's actions. See 136 L.R.R.M. (BNA) at 2194; Railway Labor Executives Ass'n, slip op. at 5. Third, and most important, in both of those cases, the courts held that the NMB had the substantive jurisdiction under the RLA to take the actions it took; consequently, in finding that the NMB had exclusive jurisdiction, the district court could not also have jurisdiction over the dispute. The question here is whether this Court has the jurisdiction to consider whether the NRAB, through the decision of its referee Twomey, acted outside its jurisdiction: if the Board had jurisdiction, we would not disturb its result. On the other hand, this Court has jurisdiction to vacate an award of the NRAB if the Board exceeded its jurisdiction.

B. Standing

Defendants further assert that the individual employees are without standing to challenge the NRAB arbitration awards in the BLE and UTU grievances. Defendants argue that the unions have the authority to assent to arbitration and that individual employees do not have standing to independently challenge the award. Plaintiffs counter that defendants are ignoring the language of 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (q), which confers standing on individual plaintiffs to challenge the BLE and UTU awards. See Memorandum in Opposition to CSX Transportation, Inc.'s Cross Motion for Summary Judgment ("Cross Motion Opposition") at 4.

The language of 45 U.S.C. § 153 First (q) expressly permits employees to challenge the jurisdiction of the NRAB through suits filed in district court. The section reads:

(q) If any employee or group of employees, or any carrier, is aggrieved by the failure of any division of the Adjustment Board to make an award in a dispute referred to it, or is aggrieved by any of the terms of an award or by the failure of the division to include certain terms in such award, then such employee or group of employees or carrier may file in any United States district court in which a petition under paragraph (p) could be filed, a petition for review of the division's order. A copy of the petition shall be forthwith transmitted by the clerk of the court to the Adjustment Board. The Adjustment Board shall file in the court the record of the proceedings on which it based its action. The court shall have jurisdiction to affirm the order of the division or to set it aside, in whole or in part, or it may remand the proceeding to the division for such further action as it may direct. On such review, the findings and order of the division shall be conclusive on the parties, except that the order of the division may be set aside, in whole or in part, or remanded to the division, for failure of the division to comply with the requirements of this chapter, for failure of the order to conform, or confine itself, to matters within the scope of the division's jurisdiction, or for fraud or corruption by a member of the

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